One Afternoon
by tayloredfit
Summary: The first few paragraphs are out of the 2nd book so people can pick up on where in the book this is at; I've just added how I think this part should of played out, it's what I've always imagined anyways.


Peeta comes by every day to bring me cheese buns and begins to help me work on the family book. It's an old thing, made of parchment and leather. Some herbalist on my mother's side of the family started it ages ago. The book's composed of page after page of ink drawings of plants with descriptions of their medical uses. My father added a section on edible plants that was my guidebook to keeping us alive after his death. For a long time, I've wanted to record my own knowledge in it. Things I learned from experience or from Gale, and then the information I picked up when I was training for the Games. I didn't because I'm no artist and it's so crucial that the pictures are drawn in exact detail. That's where Peeta comes in. Some of the plants he knows already, others we have dried samples of, and others I have to describe. He makes sketches on scrap paper until I'm satisfied they're right, then I let him draw them in the book. After that, I carefully print all I know about the plant.

It's quiet, absorbing work that helps take my mind off my troubles. I like to watch his hands as he works, making a blank page bloom with strokes of ink, adding touches of color to our previously black and yellowish book. His face takes on a special look when he concentrates. His usual easy expression is replaced by something more intense and removed that suggests an entire world locked away inside him. I've seen flashes of this before; in the arena, or when he speaks to a crowd, or that time he shoved the Peacekeepers' guns away from me in District 11. I don't know quite what to make of it. I also become a little fixated on his eyelashes, which ordinarily you don't notice much because they're so blond.

But up close, in the sunlight slanting in from the window, they're a light golden color and so long I don't see how they keep from getting all tangled up when he blinks.

Once afternoon Peeta stops shading a blossom and looks up so suddenly that I start, as though I were caught spying on him, which in a strange way maybe I was. He stares at me for a minute and smiles. I'm about to ask him what he's smiling about when he leans over and kisses me, I get that strange feeling in my chest not quite sure what it is, but then it grows and so does the kiss and I find myself wanting more. It feels different and I think it's because its just us and there's no cameras to catch us. He deepens the kiss when he moves closer to me pushing aside the book and holding my face between his hands. With him closer I can feel his body heat radiating off of him and it's comforting and familiar making me deepen the kiss even more. He pushes me back gently and lies on top of me I can feel my body absorbing his heat and I wrap my hands around his back feeling the muscles under his shirt. We break apart and stare at each other, and I'm lost in the blue of his eyes, which are alight with his feelings for me and I can feel my heart start to race, the strange feeling in my chest growing.

I kiss him again and can't help but notice how familiar his lips feel on mine and how comforting it is, how… safe. He breaks away and looks at me with uncertainty in his eyes, and something else, something like permission. Permission for what exactly, it then it hits me. I don't know what to think about it for a minute, I feel blindsided but maybe I should have expected this. I had so many thoughts running through my head but in the end, I gave it to him. We start undressing each other slowly kissing in between both of us nervous. When were both down to our small clothes I stare at him and I can feel a blush rising, even though I've seen my mother working on plenty of patients nude I still find it embarrassing. He moves closer to me and pulls off the rest of my clothing.

"You're beautiful Katniss," he breathes out and brings my lips to his. We're taking things slowly neither of us sure of what to do, and when he enters me I cry out at the unexpected pain, he stops, "Are you hurt, do you want me to stop?" He is so sincere about it I shake my head no. After a few minutes though the pain starts to go away and is slowly being replaced by pleasure, it feels so good, and it feels right that its Peeta. He starts moving in and out of me at a faster pace and it only increases in pleasure. I'm starting to feel like a cup filling up with water and I'm wondering what it's going to feel like when that cups fills over. He's groaning and I can't explain why but I find it really attractive to hear that coming out of him, we start kissing again and it's not gentle like most our kisses but hard and bruising, full of heat and maybe something more. He increases his pace even faster and I can hear our bodies smacking together, it feels so good and then I cry out his name, with him following right behind me. We're both breathing hard trying to catch our breaths and staring at each other, and I'm wondering what he's seeing in my eyes, do my eyes reflect what I'm feeling right now, the bliss and security.

"Peeta, I… I.." I'm trying to get out what I want to say.

"I know Katniss, always." He says and I can see clearly in his eyes he understands.


End file.
